Whether you are a small business or a large corporation, having a social media presence is imperative, not just to help drive traffic to your site, but to help you engage your customers, as well.

No great surprise that they listed HootSuite as one of their top recommendations, but our takeaway was this list of operations:

1. Listen

2. Plan

3. Strategy

4. Tools

Note that the first one is to listen to your customers/clients!

In the same vein is this post from Binkd, outlining what they consider to be the best tools for social media management. A lot of the same products that we recommend, but there are a few in there which will be new to most people, so well worth checking out.

Social media is great for promotion – but getting it right can be time consuming. Using an effective tool for social media management is a great solution.

Our takeaway was this great advice:

“You may have a hunch just from the above overviews which social media management tool is going to be right for you, but I still suggest taking at least two options for a test drive to get a real feel for which platform you feel most comfortable with, and which is going to best achieve the engagement and monitoring outcomes you’re looking for.

Even the paid tools available on the market offer a free trial, so there’s no excuse not to sign up, obligation free, to take each option for a spin.”

Finally today, for those fence-sitters who still aren’t convinced that your business even needs to use social media, an excellent post from D. Carlyle on why social media matters to your small business:

Social Media Management for the Media Challenged. Tailored … In fact Google, while using descriptions and keywords relies less and less on these old school techniques and more and more on social media.

Our takeaway was this:

“Google won’t know you exist if you don’t at least have something out there to tell them you exist. And if you have a great web site, with good updated content, you still need Yelp, Facebook, Twitter and anyone else you can get to promote you to do just that. Keep your business in front of people’s eyes, at home, on the road, or walking down the street looking for a slice of pizza.”

That’s it for this week’s Social Media Management Monday.Until next week, enjoy your week!

Started marketing online in 1987 (NOT a misprint!) and still learning every day! Love travelling, visiting new and interesting places, meeting new and interesting people,Self-confessed sports tragic, I love most sports (except soccer) and can sit and watch elite sportspeople for hours.

Started marketing online in 1987 (NOT a misprint!) and still learning every day! Love travelling, visiting new and interesting places, meeting new and interesting people,Self-confessed sports tragic, I love most sports (except soccer) and can sit and watch elite sportspeople for hours.